


The Verge of Temptation

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [3]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: (Or is it?), (or is she?), Accidental Seduction, Banter, Cara Dune is made of Sexy, Demisexuality, Din is smitten, F/M, Flirting, Idiots in Love, Mild Unresolved Sexual Tension, Oblivious Cara, Stripping, Thirsty Din, and she knows it, she's also a little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22791730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: The mere idea of his hands running up Cara's legs makes him both deliciously uncomfortable and deplorably ashamed. She would be very disappointed by him if she could see what is going on in his mind.But Caracan'tsee what is going on in his mind, so she just keeps stripping, and soon her tank top is gone, too, leaving only her black underwear to guard whatever little modesty left in her. Din suddenly has a very precise idea of what the termgloriousmust look like in human form – or, rather,forms.ORCara has no sense of decency whatsoever, much to Din's distress. (Or delight.)
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709416
Comments: 19
Kudos: 250
Collections: Melo Mapo’s Favorite Mandalorian Pairings





	The Verge of Temptation

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in like three hours on a sudden inspiration. What can I tell you, Nonchalant!Cara and Thirsty!Din is one of my favourite things ever.

When Cara said she needed to freshen up, Din had assumed – naively – that she meant a quick splash of water upon her face, maybe washing some dirt off her arms.

So when they stop by the little lake at the edge of the forest and Cara starts stripping down to her underwear right under his nose, Din doesn't really know what he's supposed to do or where to look.

It's no big deal as long as it's just the armour Cara is getting rid of. They have been walking for five hours straight under the sun to return to the Razor Crest and finally leave this sad excuse of a planet. Din knows clients can be very particular about meeting up with hunters but he's never had to deliver a capture in the middle of a desert before. Cara is going to complain about this for the time being, even though the reward was enough to comfortably support all three of them for months.

Correction: Cara is already complaining, and doing so while discarding her clothes piece by piece like it's absolutely no big deal.

"What are you doing?" Din dares to ask, quite stupidly, really, because what she's doing is quite obvious, isn't it?

Her shirt lands at Din's feet, as if to stress the absurdity of his question.

"What do you think, smartass?" she pants. _Pants._ As if the beads of perspiration scattered on her flushed skin weren't _distracting_ enough.

Din has never been especially sensitive to carnal temptation. Even the most attractive people he's encountered could never rouse his desire, despite his eyes being perfectly able to recognise remarkable beauty when he sees it. The thing is, he needs to feel a connection with whoever is in front of him in order to feel that spark of attraction, and no matter how gorgeous and sensual the person before him is: if he doesn't share any sort of bond with them, they might as well be invisible.

And then there's Cara.

Cara was always the mysterious exception to the rule.

He's known her for months, now, and they've been travelling together for most of this time. There's something he's been painfully aware of ever since the first kick she landed on him: Cara is alluring in a way nobody else has ever been to him.

It puzzled him, at first: he's not used to being fascinated by strangers. He normally needs to know people, and trust them, to feel in any way drawn to them. Cara changed every statistic. Cara, with her defiant little grins and flexing biceps, took every rule in his book, crumpled them up, and gracefully threw them out of the window, leaving Din to deal with an instant sense of kinship he hadn't been prepared to face.

He doesn't know what Cara is to him, yet. He's been trying to decipher the irrational, unprecedented reactions she ignites in his body and soul, and so far the only conclusion he's been able to reach is that she makes him extremely confused. And, occasionally, extremely frustrated.

“You know,” Cara says as she nonchalantly kicks off her boots to step out of her pants. “You should lose all that stuff you're wearing and take a swim. You must be hard-boiled under all that metal.”

Din doesn't know about _boiled,_ but he has a feeling that, if Cara keeps doing what she's doing, at this rate he's going to be _hard_ in a matter of seconds.

He blesses his helmet for concealing the way his eyes are glued to the length of her naked legs, chiselled to perfection by muscles that ripple under the smoothness of her skin every time she moves her balance from one foot to another. He has no idea how her thighs can look so strong and so soft at the same time. He feels an itch in his palms as this thought creeps up on him, a little, wicked voice whispering in his ear that the only way to find out if that is true is to _touch._

The mere idea of his hands running up Cara's legs makes him both deliciously uncomfortable and deplorably ashamed. She would be very disappointed by him if she could see what is going on in his mind.

But Cara _can't_ see what is going on in his mind, so she just keeps stripping, and soon her tank top is gone, too, leaving only her black underwear to guard whatever little modesty left in her. Din suddenly has a very precise idea of what the term _glorious_ must look like in human form – or, rather, _forms._

“'sup, dummy? Don't tell me you can't swim?”

Din blinks. It takes a few seconds for his brain to process the question. His whole system is failing because Cara has crossed her arms to emphasise her mocking expression and her breasts are beautifully squeezed together in the middle of her chest, and even though Din might be able to swim, he certainly wouldn't be able to remember how to do that, as of now.

“I'm not in the mood for a swim,” he says. Lame. But he can't just tell her he's too afraid that taking his armour off will expose him a bit too much, can he? Cara doesn't need to know what her unmerciful display of feminine allure is doing to him.

Scoffing, Cara unfolds her arms and starts walking toward him.

Din instinctively takes a step back.

“I just wanna take the kid,” Cara says with an amused scowl. She holds out her arms and the child tries to jump straight into her arms. Quite understandably. Din certainly can't expect him to prefer the tough surface of Beskar to... all of that.

He hands the kid to Cara and watches, a bit envious, as she props him upon her chest, greeting his happy reaction with a radiant smile that does things to Din's knees.

“You're acting weird,” she notes, eyeing him suspiciously.

“And you're seeing things.”

He sounds slightly defensive, but Cara doesn't seem to notice. She stares at him for a couple of seconds, then gives a vague shrug and turns on her heel to walk back to the water.

Din forgets to breathe. Somehow he hadn't realised Cara was going to have to turn her back to him to return to the lake. Her back, and all the other tantalising parts of her on display from the waist down.

Din was sure her ass and hips only looked so perfectly rounded because of the pants and the belt shaping them up. Turns out not a single inch of Cara's body needs any help: everything is masterfully shaped just as it is in the plain daylight.

He follows the slow swinging of Cara's hips as she carries the child to the edge of the water. When she sets him down, she doesn't bend her knees, but all of herself, which gives Din a quite breath-taking view for a second and simultaneously makes him wonder what other view he must be missing from the other side.

If he could step out of his body and kick himself, he would.

This is so disrespectful of him. Cara doesn't deserve this sort of behaviour from him: she's entitled to enjoy a bath on a torrid day without him lusting over her (undeniably enchanting) curves.

He watches her pluck off the kid's robe with one swift movement and take his hand to carefully guide him into the water, her smile as bright as the sun shining above her. The kid squeals out in delight, and Din's heart leaps when Cara responds with an equally delighted giggle.

He wonders how bad it is that he can picture her exact expression even though he can't see her face.

And this is when it hits him.

His mouth drops open. He feels stupid for not seeing this sooner, he's never attracted to people he's not involved with. It's always been like this. It's still like this.

Cara was never an exception to this rule. In fact, she is the ultimate confirmation of it.

His look soars to Cara flipping her hair back as she emerges from underwater, the child floating beside her as though water was his natural element. The sunlight glistens through the minuscule droplets on Cara's arms and chest as she leans back and abandons herself upon the surface of the lake.

He feels his stomach tighten at a sudden realisation: all the beauty he sees in her... he's not seeing it with his eyes. He's _feeling_ it, raw and deep and breath-taking, and for some reason it makes him feel like he needs to cry.

He almost doesn't know how he ends up sitting down on the rock behind him.

This is a complication he didn't need. Especially because Cara definitely doesn't feel the same. In fact, Cara has such a non-romantic perception of him that she feels perfectly comfortable stripping and getting sinfully wet in front of him.

At least, the issue is settled before it was even a problem.

“Hey, Mandad.”

He looks up at the shadow that has appeared above him: Cara is standing in from of him, dripping water over the ground and his feet. The kid is hooked to her ankle, peeking up at thin with a big, toothy grin that still can't completely distract Din's attention from the voluptuous lines of Cara's calves.

“You two done already?”

Cara jokingly sprinkles some water upon him. “We did what we had to. I couldn't bear to see you all alone here under the sun.”

The softness is her voice...

How was Din even _surprised_ to realise he has caught feelings for this woman? He was doomed before he even knew her name.

“You didn't have to stop on my account.”

Cara picks up her shirt from the ground and absently starts rubbing it over her wet hair. “You try having fun while there's a brooding guy longingly watching you from afar.”

The lack of a specific tone to match such a controversial observation confuses Din, and also alarms him a little. Was his longing that obvious that she could pick it up even despite his helmet?

“For the record, the water was as lovely as it looked.”

Oh.

_Oh._

She thought his longing was for the-

He's such a fool.

Cara's bare foot touches his shin. “Mind if I sit for a moment?”

“Uh? Sure.”

Cara quirks a brow at him when he doesn't move.

“As comfortable and inviting as your lap might look,” she quips. “I'm pretty sure I'd scorch my legs if I sat on that Beskar right now.”

Din wonders if the heat he feels beneath his helmet is due to him blushing or to a more general and more compromising reaction he'd rather not think about. The thought of Cara's naked legs on his Beskar is torture.

He quickly scoots over and Cara finally sits by his side, pulling the kid to her lap.

“Just a few minutes and we'll be dry,” she tells him, running a hand over one damp ear.

Din feels her poke his side.

“You sure you're okay, man? You're being more quiet than usual.”

“I was just... thinking.”

“Thinking? Of what?”

Din leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, turns to her slowly.

“Stupid things,” he sighs. What else can he say?

There is a brief pause of silence, then Cara gently bumps her bare shoulder against his.

“Do these stupid things involve me?”

“What?”

He hopes he doesn't sound as panicked as he feels. She can't possibly _tell-_

“I just realised I probably made you uncomfortable,” she says. It's something like an apology, but a very light-hearted one. She's smiling. “Sometimes I forget people are supposed to have boundaries, and I just... don't.”

“I can think of worse scenarios than a beautiful woman stripping in front of me,” he half laughs. He doesn't know where this bout of honesty is coming from. It's probably a consequence of Cara's unfaltering confidence, giving him a bit of courage he wouldn't normally have. Not for something like this.

“Is that so?” She bites a lopsided smirk between her teeth. “Did you hear that, kid? Your dad just flat out complimented me. The sun must've cooked his brains into that pot of his, huh?”

The child chirps up at her. He tries to grab a lock of her hair, but Cara pulls back, so he turns to the next best option and starts pulling at the cleavage of her top, exposing, just for one second, details of Cara's curves that Din is sure he was not supposed to see.

He hastily looks away, but Cara bursts into a hearty laugh, chasing the kid's hand away without any fuss.

“Easy, you little perv! We don't wanna give your dad a heart attack, do we?”

Din wishes he had the mental presence to snort. He's seen enough today to drive himself insane with inappropriate thoughts _and_ subsequent guilt for months.

“I've made my peace with heart attacks when you joined the team, Dune,” he informs her.

Cara huffs. He can feel the firm press of her thigh, hot as embers, against his armour.

“Are you insinuating my presence is distressing?” she inquires, feigning an offended tone.

“It's certainly not relaxing.”

“It could be,” says Cara, with something like a subtle promise in her voice.

It's not a response Din was psychologically ready to receive. He looks at her and finds a small, sultry grin dancing on her lips, in her eyes.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asks, though he thinks he knows. It's just a bit hard – and too good – to believe.

Still biting into a mischievous smile, Cara gives a causal shrug.

“I don't know. What do we want it to mean?”

She rises her eyes too meet his, and this – _this_ is actually worthy of a heart attack: the shocking blackness of these irises, warm and impenetrable, glittering in the afternoon sunlight to look at _him._ And what she says: _'What do_ we _want it to mean?'_

_We._

So she does know. And not just that: she just implicitly admitted Din is not the only one who's been having... _thoughts._

The child keeps glancing back and forth from him to her as though he could sense the intrinsic significance of this moment, because nothing is actually happening but this could be a first step to something more, whatever _more_ might involve.

“I believe,” he mutters. “It would be easier for me to talk about this if you put your clothes back on.”

The low chuckle that escapes Cara's lips goes straight to Din's heart. It's unfair, honestly, how effortlessly she can get under his skin.

“That kind of answers your question, though?” she teases, and, yes, that more than _kind of_ answers his question. This doesn't stop Din from sending her a pointed glare that hopefully will get through to her.

“Alright, alright,” she giggles, plopping the kid down onto his lap to stand up. She goes to collect her garments from where she scattered them all over the grass.

“You know, the best thing about putting clothes on,” she says as she slips back into her shirt. “Is that this way they can be taken _off.”_

Din chokes on his own spit.

Cara smirks, blatantly proud of herself.

As Din observes her legs disappear into her pants he thinks that perhaps he's weak and pathetic, but she _definitely_ has a point. Unfortunately for his sanity.

“A little piece of advice,” Cara says as she brushes past him to find the pieces of her armour. “Next time a woman tells you she wants to get wet, you might want to join her instead of sitting back to just watch.”

Din is _furious_ with himself for being utterly incapable of feeling mad at her.

He stands up, tucking the child against his chest, and watches her fasten her armour with her words echoing in his mind like a promise.

Cara's clothes look _lovely_ on her but he's fairly curious to find out how they look on the Razor Crest's floor.

**Author's Note:**

> Can you guys believe it? I've finally achieved a decent level of conciseness.
> 
> Did I enjoy writing this? Of course. Am I still channelling my lust for Gina Carano through thirsty fanfic? Most definitely. Was the story good? You tell me.


End file.
